Two Posts For The Price Of One: SIA & Postcard

I’m going to try something a little different for this post. I’m going to combine my SIA posting with a small segment of my latest postcard that I painted. I was supposed to write about the postcard last week sometime, but I never got around to doing it, which I’m not exactly happy about, but that’s how it goes sometimes…

Jen chose a patchwork piece from Korea called a “jogakbo”. You can read more about this piece (as well as see a picture of it on Jen’s blog) here .

Though I like this patchwork art, it was a bit difficult for me to find the right kind of shirt to best go with this SIA (without repeating a previous look). And if memory serves me, I wore this sweater for a previous SIA challenge curated by Jen called “Capax Infiniti”, for its neutral reds and grays. So I struck out on the whole “not repeating myself” thing, but this was the closest thing that I could come up with. But ironically enough, I also wore this sweater to the museum one time and the background behind me would have been perfect for this current SIA. Check it out below!

Really makes you dizzy just looking at it, doesn’t it? It’s like standing in another dimension as it’s hard to distinguish between the wall and the floor. I actually wouldn’t mind having at least one room at home painted like this, though it’d have to be in black, gray and white. 😉

Anyway, getting back to my outfit, I couldn’t really decide what to go with for this SIA, so I took the neutral route, as those are the colors that I saw in the patchwork. And like my SIA colleagues have said before, one of the best things about these challenges is that you can interpret them any way that you wish, which makes it fun and gives you a lot of freedom. And given my lack of fancy attire, this concept works in my favor.

So there you have it folks. Be sure to check in on Jen’s blog Tuesday, April 25th for the round-up to see how everyone else went about in interpreting this piece. Should be fun!

Okay, now for the second part of my post. I’m presenting my latest postcard that I painted last weekend. Take a look below:

I call this Quiet Pond. Done with watercolor paint, I would say that this is probably one of my best postcards that I’ve done up to date. And unlike many of my previous postcards that I’ve painted, this one was done with a more “heavy” layering of the watercolor paint. What I mean by that is, I used less water and applied the paint more thickly than normal for a watercolor painting so that it appears to look more “acrylic”, as opposed to the more “washed out” look of a standard watercolor piece. I’d say that it worked out rather well, wouldn’t you say?

And I can’t take all the credit for this painting. It was inspired by one of my favorite artists of all time, Bob Ross . For those of you who may have seen some of his videos, or like me, had the pleasure of watching him live on TV back in the early 90s, you know that he would often “invite” the viewers to paint along with him as he painted during his 30 minute TV shows each week. Well, after just watching him paint all of these years, I finally decided to go ahead and paint along with him, figuratively speaking of course. You can see how I was inspired to paint this postcard by watching the same video I did, here . And what’s nice about doing it now, as opposed to back then in 1984 (I was only a year old then) is that we can do an instant replay when we need to re-watch a section that we missed, or pause with a touch of a button or screen, so that we can render the right colors in our paintings as we paint along. By the way, it took me a lot longer than 30 minutes to paint my postcard; more like an hour at best.

A lot has changed in the past 33 years. But what hasn’t changed is the love of art and how anyone (and that includes all of you reading this post) can pick up a brush and some paints and can make art too. Try it sometime. If Bob were still alive today, he’d tell you the same thing.

So there you have it dear readers; two posts for the price of one. While I didn’t really want to combine my SIA post with my postcard one, it was the best that I could do, as I don’t know when I’ll have time to post anything new on the blog anytime soon. If anyone knows how I can write posts ahead of time and post them later, I’d love to know. I’m still trying to become a good blogger and I still don’t know all of the rules yet. I’m just sort of figuring them out as I go along. Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading! See you next post.

I really liked your choice of sweater for this challenge! It worked well.
That background is INSANE! WHere is it? I too would like it in a house!
The postcard is lovely- I love that type of natural scene and I think you’vegot the colours spot on!

Thank you, Kezzie! I was worried that my sweater would be a little too bland for this SIA, but I’ve gotten so much positive feedback for it that I now feel that it was a great choice! 🙂

I know, right?! That was a pretty wild exhibit. The space I was standing in was a small room inside the Akron Art Museum in my hometown. They actually painted the floor, walls and the ceiling to give it that whole “3D” effect. When the exhibit moved on, they had to redo everything in that room, which I heard took some time to do!

Thank you! I feel that this was one of my best postcards that I have ever done. But I owe most of the thanks to Bob Ross as that is how I came up with the inspiration to do this painting. He was truly a great artist. 🙂

Thank you, Jen! I really appreciate you helping me to promote my blog. You and Salazar have made my day. I sometimes fear that my blog is “dead in the water”, so seeing your comments is very much appreciated. 🙂

I’d say that sweater is pretty perfect for this SIA. And that museum background is awesome! Don’t sweat about having to wear the outfit at the “right” time for SIA. I have received plenty of submissions of old outfits that people just think are appropriate for SIA.

Thanks, Salazar! Yeah, I was a bit worried for “re-using” the same outfit for another SIA, but I agree; the horizontal stripes of my sweater seem to work nicely for this one.
And thanks! Yeah, I can’t remember off hand what the exhibit was for that background, but it was pretty wild. They painted part of the floor, wall and even the ceiling I think, to give the viewers the full experience of the art. You could literally walk into it!

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The Reason For My Blog

My blog is about postcards. It is something that I am very passionate about and really enjoy doing. And I would like to share that passion with everyone who reads my blog. After being encouraged by others to write a blog about my passion, I decided to go for it. I am new at this. I am not an expert blogger and I will probably make a few mistakes along the way. And that is okay as that is how we learn and get better. My blog will also contain book reviews (reading is another passion of mine) as well as the SIA challenges that you've seen on here. In no way is my blog encouraging any sort of illegal activity, acts of violence, sexual material or any other forms of extreme content that would be grounds to have my blog shut down. I do welcome any and all comments that come my way and I will do my best to reply to all of them. Even critical comments are welcomed, but offensive or extremely harsh ones are not. Please keep that in mind.